


color and light

by pixiepower



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Developing Relationship, Falling In Love, M/M, art teacher xu minghao, music teacher joshua hong, supporting each other!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:00:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22625968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixiepower/pseuds/pixiepower
Summary: Minghao knows a few things for certain: no one can really tell if you grade drunk if you don’t have to write that many comments, Jisoo is far better suited to teach young students than he is, and this whole gallery thing is fucking nervewracking.•“Those who can’t do, teach,” and other lies Jisoo is helping Minghao get past.
Relationships: Hong Jisoo | Joshua/Xu Ming Hao | The8
Comments: 8
Kudos: 107





	color and light

**Author's Note:**

> title from “color and light,” from sunday in the park with george.
> 
> this is a little different! i hope you enjoy it!

“It’s the gallery,” Jisoo says, striding through the door to Minghao’s classroom, nearly the same moment Minghao’s phone starts to ring.

Rolling his eyes, Minghao wipes one hand on the thigh of his overalls to clean it of paint before reaching for his cell phone in the chest pocket. “And what would make you guess that, hyung?” he says, trailing off so he can answer more clearly, “Hello?”

_“Hello, we’re calling from the Art Sonje Center, is this Seo Myungho-ssi?”_

Minghao’s eyes widen, and Jisoo’s lips settle into a smug line. _The gallery?_ he mouths, as though he doesn’t already know. His eyes are bright, the corners crinkled into something familiar, the same sort of look he gets when one of his students jumps up a rank evaluation after struggling with a particularly difficult piece.

“Yes, this is he.”

There’s a sort of static that runs through Minghao’s brain as he processes what the gallery representative is offering him. Her voice echoes inside his head as he stares at his canvas in progress, and out of the corner of his eye Jisoo pushes himself up to sit on Minghao’s desk. He crosses his legs comfortably, unwraps a sandwich and starts to eat it, and he doesn’t look at Minghao, but his mouth still has that sort of _I-knew-it_ smile tugging at the edges, and Minghao needs to stare on something else, something still, so he can focus on the information being communicated.

He looks at his palette balanced on his knee, the blues and greens running together on the wood in ombré shades, and his eyes pick up the yellow ochre, floating like a moon in the sea of deep colors.

“I’m honored. Yes, absolutely. Thank you for the opportunity.”

Polished black shoe with a sock bearing _The Starry Night_ peeking out from under the rolled hem of his trousers, Jisoo’s foot twitches excitedly where it floats above the concrete floor, and Minghao waves a hand at him. _Stop!_ his hand says, and Jisoo stifles a grin in his sandwich, but nods anyway.

_“Thank you for participating. We eagerly await your contribution. Please check your email inbox for more details, including your submission agenda, and call back or visit if you have any concerns.”_

Minghao ends the call and stares down, yellow ochre. He sees Jisoo pointedly not move in his periphery. “It was the gallery,” he says.

“Oh! _Was_ it the gallery?” Jisoo says, dripping with sarcasm, and Minghao pulls a hand back with his paintbrush as if to flick paint onto him. Jisoo laughs, low and happy, and says, “Do your worst. I hate this sweater.”

It’s brown, cable-knit with those flecks of rainbow wool throughout. It’s a nice sweater. Minghao smiles. 

“If you’re waiting for me to say you told me so, hyung, you’ll be waiting a long time.”

Shrugging, Jisoo gives Minghao a lopsided grin in return. “I can be patient. I waited for you to apply for the gallery position, didn’t I? And how long did that take, again?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Minghao says, and his stubborn smile just won't leave. He stands, setting his palette on his seat, and when he turns, Jisoo is chewing again, holding out the other half of his sandwich in offering. Minghao bows his head a little when he takes his first bite, and they eat quietly, side-by-side, for a while.

He doesn’t have to say, ‘Thank you,’ because Jisoo already knows.

•

Nobody ever said anything about this kind of existential paperwork when he applied to the gallery; grading countless appreciation analyses suddenly seems far preferable to the simple packet strewn across Minghao’s desk. _Name, date of birth, country of origin,_ sure, easy. _Title of work(s), description for object label,_ the things he’s been wrestling with for months. Simple enough to consider in the abstract, more difficult to put down in words.

He didn’t have to think about what piece he wanted to submit. The painting came together like breathing, the choosing like blinking. Minghao put together the application all at once in a fit of bravery, then closed out of the .pdf after a single glance at the _submit_ button. If it took a little plying with wine for him to get the courage to actually send his submission, who’s the wiser? (Mingyu, primarily, as the one who did most of the plying. But Minghao doesn't hold it against him.)

The frustrated sigh Minghao lets out as he restacks his papers is suddenly drowned out by a cacophony of recorders and triangles, echoing down the hall just outside his classroom. The Doppler effect of it all distorts the tune, though Minghao presumes that it’s only half to do with the way the sound carries in the hallway, the rest of the dissonance due to the simple fact that it’s the first class period on Friday.

Friday. Best day of the week.

He’s only a little disheveled getting out of his chair, still taking the time to push it in before crossing the room in four long-legged strides, opening the door the rest of the way to lean against the frame and peer out into the hall. 

The rest of the teachers seem a little tired of the parade by this point in the term, eyes glazed over and coffee in hand, placating smiles pasted onto their visages, but Minghao always has trouble fighting the delight that crosses his face when he hears those first few messy chords. There’s just something about high-knees in tiny leggings and starched collars on tiny polo shirts as they march through the school, whistling and tooting _twinkle twinkle little star_ like their lives depend on it.

And if Jisoo is bringing up the rear, warm eyes shining proudly down at his class — who genuinely _are_ improving, no matter what bitter old Han-ssaem says — and Minghao takes notice, well.

Jisoo’s eyes crescent when the first few children pass Minghao’s classroom, little heads that were previously flagging snapping back to attention, held high at the sight of Minghao waving his school flag encouragingly. The apples of his cheeks push upward when he strolls past Minghao, who murmurs, “They sound extra good today.” Jisoo almost rolls his eyes, but not in disagreement, his scrunched-up face turning into a pleased little shake of his head.

All the tiny patent-leather shoes tap across the tile floor as they loop around the end of the hall to head back to Jisoo’s classroom, and Minghao watches Jisoo strum over his guitar strings, broad hands spanning nearly half the width of the polished-wood body. His khakis are rolled up an extra turn, Minghao thinks, each step showing _Water Lilies_ over his ankles.

With a smile, Minghao turns back to reenter his room, the twinkling twinkling of little stars echoing cutely through the halls.

•

Minghao stares at the wall, the crimson-coral of the canvas burning at his retinas, and he wonders if somehow it would look different if he stopped blinking. The thick gesso swirling under yellow ochre sunbursts, if they would feel less plaintive than they look, despite all the brightness.

He thinks of his students, struggling every day with their art, trying to find a way to express themselves because, really, they don’t know themselves yet. So much to say and unsure how to say it. Maybe that’s something you work on forever.

It’s why Minghao likes painting, because you can spend minutes and hours and days and months trying to capture one moment. Minghao has a lot of moments he’d like to remember. Immortalize.

In his periphery, though, Frida Kahlo. _The Frame,_ under denim, the birds and her face bursting with life. Minghao lets a smile pull over his own face, moving half a step to the side to share the center view.

“What do you think?” Jisoo asks, knocking his shoulder against Minghao’s.

Minghao gazes long into his own painting again. What is it to invest another two minutes, when, in the grand scheme of things, he’s already poured in hundreds? How much work is enough?

“Context is everything,” he says finally.

Jisoo tilts his head to the side to reevaluate it, arm brushing Minghao’s when he adjusts the strap of his bag. “It did look different on the floor of your apartment.”

“It’s the lighting.”

“Your apartment lighting does leave a lot to be desired. No offense.”

Minghao snorts, then. “None taken. It’s why I paint during the day.”

“I look forward to your new series, then. _Nightworks,_ or whatever, where you can’t see what colors you’re mixing or where you’re putting it and in the end it looks like Hansol’s college shirts are stretched over your canvases,” Jisoo laughs.

There’s always that moment when Jisoo laughs, where he said something perceptive, but it sounds like a joke. He never means to, either, which is the best part about it.

“Not better or worse, you know. Just different.”

Different in the way Jisoo’s hair looked different at the bar that Friday night, when Minghao’s car broke down in the staff parking lot after school and Jisoo offered him a ride when he wasn’t even going home, when Minghao first watched his cheeks grow rosy with the same wine Minghao ordered, when Mingyu and Jeonghan asked five minutes after meeting him if Jisoo ever sang noraebang — _“but you’re a music teacher!”_ — and Minghao blinked in the dim light and things felt different? That ‘different’?

Or different in the way that seeing Jisoo see his piece, illuminated by strong gallery lighting, wearing a vermilion sweater that matches the pigment of the strokes that cover the canvas edge to edge, makes Minghao look at it differently?

The yellow ochre bursts hopefully over the field of red. Sunrises and sunsets contained in a fireworks display of flowers. Hung standard, brackets hidden behind the stretcher bars, pot light directed over it. Sturdy.

“Well, not much to be done about it now,” he jokes.

Jisoo turns, then, and rests a hand on the small of Minghao’s back comfortingly. That bright-eyed look cleaves through Minghao again, clean and stripped like turpentine on a brush.

“Good. It’s wonderful the way it is.”

•

In the far recesses of Minghao’s mind, Klimt slides with purpose up his calf, ankles tangled with his. _The Kiss_ nudging at his feet. Warm fingertips and a warmer laugh.

•

Opening of the exhibition falls on a Saturday, and instead of the stack of information pamphlets Seokmin had asked him to grab, Minghao has a velvet suit on and essays in hand.

It’s easier, sort of, to be surrounded by the suffocating fear of failure and let it wash over him while he uses his valuable time to just go back to what he knows.

Minghao knows a few things for certain: no one can really tell if you grade drunk if you don’t write that many comments, Jisoo is far better suited to teach young students than he is, and this whole gallery thing is fucking nervewracking. 

Just for starters.

“No one is going to know it’s yours if you keep doing this admittedly very convincing hermit crab impression, Myungho-yah,” Jisoo teases, picking up the stack of essays and neatening them as he sits down on the bench next to Minghao.

“Good,” says Minghao, “Maybe I want to be one of those enigmatic painters. No one knows who I am but they’ll wish they did, and it will make my work infinitely more valuable when I am gone.”

Macabre? Fatalistic? Maybe a little, but Jisoo smiles, all crescent moons and a field of stars. “I can’t let that happen, not with hands like these.”

He picks up Minghao’s hand, then, squeezes it in his own, wide palms and strong fingers enveloping his thin ones for an eight-count. Threading their fingers together for another sixteen. Minghao wonders when he started to count in measures.

“Come on, then,” Jisoo says, removing the last of the essays from Minghao’s grip, which has loosened considerably in the last four bars.

They stand together, Minghao brushing off his lap and smoothing the velvet down on his thighs, Jisoo adjusting his socks, _The Birth of Venus_ shy below his slim-cut suit pants. Was it cold when she emerged from her clamshell?

“Okay, but if one person asks me, ‘Did you really make that?’ or, ‘What’s this supposed to be?’ can we leave and get bingsoo?” asks Minghao, fishing a little.

The ensuing roll of Jisoo’s eyes and the accompanying laugh make the gallery lights burn not quite so hot.

•

“Is it redundant if I say I’m proud of you?” Jisoo asks in lieu of a greeting on Monday, sitting in his preferred spot at the corner of Minghao’s desk. The _Mona Lisa_ greets Minghao in return, not-smiling wryly over Jisoo’s shoes, Monday-brown.

Minghao startles to see him, hand still poised at the keyhole even as his other arm is pushing open his classroom door. 

How early did he have to get here to beat Minghao, known early-arriver? There’s even coffee on his desk, two hot to-go cups with stoppers. The closest twenty-four-hour coffee place is fifteen minutes out of the way. (Minghao would know. He has to go there twice a month when he realizes Soonyoung forgot to get grounds for the staff coffeemaker again.)

Jisoo stands up when Minghao gets close, lets Minghao set his bag down on the spot where he was sitting, and gives him some space.

The worst is the garland strung up around Minghao’s chair, framing his desk in the corner like a festival. With each step closer he’s able to make out the images on the papers —

Jisoo’s students drew his painting. 

On each pennant is a square, and within it, every little hand filled in with their favorite red, scarlet, ruby, vermilion, claret, cherry, with explosions of yellow like sunshine, like lemons, like smiley faces. Their wobbly handwritten names below each one. Like they knew exactly what to say, exactly how to express it.

“Hyung, what?” Minghao breathes, reaching up to touch one, the waxy crayon haphazardly scribbled across the square sliding under his thumb.

“Like I said,” says Jisoo. His voice sounds close behind Minghao now. “I’m proud of you.”

Minghao takes a deep breath, then pitches backward a little, letting his shoulderblades rest against Jisoo’s chest. It vibrates with his resulting surprised laughter, and the soft, hiccupy sound of it blooms in Minghao’s chest. Jisoo throws an arm over Minghao’s chest like he knows, holding him in an almost-hug while Minghao traces his fingers over the recreations.

He tries to find a way to say what he wants to say.

With a little effort, Minghao crosses an arm over himself to catch hold of Jisoo’s waist, turning in his embrace to face him, close.

“Hyung,” he repeats, and Jisoo is looking back at him with Minghao’s favorite _I-knew-it_ smile again.

Minghao laughs, because he doesn’t know what else to do, and punctuates it by leaning forward to kiss Jisoo. This side of chaste, they _are_ at school, but full of feeling. Bursting yellow ochre. Jisoo kisses back, soft and slow, before pulling back, resting his forehead on Minghao’s.

“Thank you,” Minghao says, blush pulling up over his ears. Not for the kiss. Well, not specifically. Not only.

Jisoo smiles. A field of vermilion. “Get ready for class.”

Scoffing, Minghao says, “Big talk, you spent how much time in my classroom? Think about _your_ students, you can’t just put on an Ai Weiwei documentary and call it a day like me.”

That laugh again, as Jisoo picks up his coffee and holds it up in a mock-toast on the way out. “You got me there. See you for lunch?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Minghao says, and waits until Jisoo closes the door behind him to lift his fingertips to his lips, smiling.

•

Friday, _The Great Wave off Kanagawa._

 _Twinkle twinkle,_ and a wink, and a bloom of yellow ochre in Minghao’s chest.

**Author's Note:**

> i just think minghao would give joshua a pack of art socks, and then he would wear them every day. they are in love.
> 
> thank you for reading!
> 
> find me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/pixiepowerao3) and [curiouscat](http://www.curiouscat.me/pixiepower/)!


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